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Friday, August 17, 2012

Alas, I'm No Princess...

Do you ever become reminded of books, stories, or past memories in an unusual way? Sometimes that is the most fun. Recently I woke up one morning and found, much to my amusement, that I had slept on two small bicycle helmets belonging to my seven year old daughter's Polly Pockets.

For those of you who are familiar with Polly Pockets, you know they are very small dolls with a myriad of accessories and rubber clothes. What you might not know, however, is the fact that there are some pint sized Pollys about half the size of the originals. So you can well imagine that the bicycle helmets for the pint size versions are only about the size of a very large pea.

Picking up those pea sized helmets from my bed, I began to laugh. What was I laughing at you ask? Why the story of The Princess and the Pea of course. You know, that old Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale that tells of the princess who slept uncomfortably on a huge stack of mattresses because someone had placed a pea underneath the bottom mattress. Apparently the fact that she was able to feel the pea was the tell tale sign that she was true royalty.

Since I obviously did not feel the peas I was sleeping on, peas that were right under me and not even under a stack of mattresses, I am not a princess. Saddened as I am by that knowledge, I think I will survive. I might even go to the library and see if I can find a copy of The Princess and the Pea to share with my daughter, who for some unknown reason, was playing where I sleep.